


A bouquet of flowers

by Night_Queen3927



Series: Picking flowers [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Blood, Feels, Flowers, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Kinda?, Language of Flowers, Lila salt, Little bit of blood, Sad, bring your own tissues, but very minor, but with a spin, byot, its for betrayed feelings, its for platonic feelings, its not just for romantic feelings anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22160173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_Queen3927/pseuds/Night_Queen3927
Summary: Hanahaki Disease is not just for someone with unrequited love, it's for anyone who has strong feelings towards another that are not reciprocated.So what happens when Marinette starts coughing up flowers.
Relationships: Akuma Class & Marinette Dupain-Cheng|Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki
Series: Picking flowers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741981
Comments: 39
Kudos: 452





	A bouquet of flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't want it to be mine.
> 
> Warnings: Minor discussion of blood. It is literally just a descriptive used on the flowers coughed up.

_Symbolism is rift in all things from colors, to shapes, to animals, to plants. Flowers in particular have long had symbolism attached to them. So much that a language was created so that you could convey complex messages with flowers._

“Come on, Marinette. Just apologize to Lila and we can all be friends again.” Alya rolled her eyes and scoffed. “I don’t know why you kept insisting that she is lying.”

“No, Alya! I refuse to apologize to her! She isn’t telling the truth about anything!” Marinette shot back, eyes watering. “All that I-”

“Fine!” Alya interrupted, her lips twisting into a snarl. “Until you start acting like the Marinette that I know and like, you and I, we are not friends! And none of the others will be your friend either! You need to shape up!” Alya shouted, throwing her hands into the air in frustration. She growled as she stormed out of the classroom, leaving Marinette all alone in the back row.

Marinette let out a sob, burying her face into her arms on the desk. “I can’t believe this. Alya wouldn’t even listen to me. I got evidence proving that Lila lied, but she doesn’t even want to listen.” Suddenly, Marinette started coughing, ones that shook her chest. Her throat constricted and flared open, creating a painful sensation.

Her mouth was forced open, and small flowers fell out of it in a stream, a riot of color. When Marinette finished, coughing up all of the leftover petals, she sorted the flowers. Her eyes were leaking tears and her lips were bloody from biting.

_Pelargonium quercifolium_

Commonly known as Oakleaf Geranium, they symbolize true friendships. The ones that Marinette had coughed up were wilted and spotted with holes from pests.

“Betrayal of a true friendship. It is broken now, burnt beyond repair.” Marinette whispered, holding a flower up to inspect it.

_Clematis Vitalba_

More popularly known as Old Man’s Beard, they symbolize ingenuity and artifice. They had wrapped around other flowers that Marinette had coughed up, wreaking havoc on Marinette’s throat.

“The liar’s flower, one that takes over and chokes out competitors.” Marinette tried to detangle the flowers, but failed. The clematis had too tight a grip on the other flowers.

_Solanum Dulcamara_

The common names are bittersweet or trailing nightshade, they mean truth and loyalty. Those flowers were shrunken, as if they had been deprived of sunlight and nutrients.

“The flower of truth and loyalty. It can be praised or despised for its qualities.” Marinette gently stroked the fragile petals of the flower

_Asphodeline Lutea_

King’s Spear, a majestic name that fits perfectly with its meaning of regret. There was a large pile of the blooms, all dotted with red.

“That is fitting, a King regrets both using and not using their spear. They cannot win.” Marinette chuckled softly, running a gentle finger over the petals.

_Cyclamen Persicum_

The Persian cyclamen, a simple flower, one that means both farewell and resignation. They were the only flowers to look as if they had just been plucked off of a stem.

“I feel like there is a pattern here.” Marinette sighed, and pinned the flowers into her pigtails so that they were prominent.

Marinette reached into her backpack and pulled out a jar. Everyone had something like that, in case they ever coughed up flowers since it was considered indecent for people to see all of the flowers. Gently, Marinette swept all of the flowers into the jar, being careful to not damage them and screwed the lid back on.

Reaching back into her backpack, Marinette pulled out a pink cloth decorated with colorful embroidered flowers and wrapped it around the jar, securing it with buttons.

“Ready to go home, Tikki?” Marinette asked, standing up and holding her jar of flowers tightly in her arms.

“Why aren’t you putting the jar into your backpack, Marinette?” Tikki chirped, flying onto Marinette’s shoulder.

“Do you know what happened?” Marinette asked, looking at Tikki.

“Hanahaki, right?”

“Yes. There are different types of Hanahaki, just like with almost all medical issues. There is the romantic Hanahaki which happens when someone has a deep unrequited romantic love for someone. That is the one that most people know of because of the media, and all of the flowers have romantic connotations. This is a rarer version of platonic Hanahaki. It is when someone loses friendships or family, but still wants to keep them.” Marinette gently rapped on the jar. “Platonic Hanahaki is the only time when you can carry the flowers openly, and are expected to. It is meant to show the person that you truly care for them, and want to be with them.”

“But then why are you covering the flowers up?” Tikki flew down to the jar to adjust the fabric covering.

“The common platonic Hanahaki, you wouldn’t, because the flowers show how much you admire the person and want to be with them. This version is because of betrayal, so you aren’t supposed to show the flowers themselves to others.” Marinette answered as she refastened a button that had fallen open. “You have a few options with the flowers actually.”

“So you could throw them away and pretend that it never happened?” Tikki asked as she flew to Marinette’s bag.

“I could do that. I could just carry it out, implying that someone betrayed me. I could give the jar to the class, placing the blame squarely at their feet.” Marinette answered as she started walking to the door. 

“What will you do?” Tikki chirped, digging out a macaroon for her to munch on. “How will you cure it?”

“I’ll just carry it out. No one will be ostracized because of it but it might force others to consider their actions more.” Marinette pulled open the door and walked through. The jar was pressed to her chest, one hand on the bottom and the other wrapped around it to steady it. The fabric wrinkled slightly, but remained in place, concealing the flowers. “I don’t know how I can cure it though, Tikki.”

Holding her head high, Marinette exited the room, heading for the exit so that she could go home. A single crystal tear dropped from her eye, landing on the lid of the jar.

~-_~-_~-_~-_~-_

The cheerful and loud babble in Collège Françoise Dupont silenced as a small figure glided through the halls, a jar covered with pink in their hands. The silence rippled out as people turned to look at why people stopped talking and they stopped talking themselves.

One person gasped, bringing their hand to their hand. The words that they said were breathed out, quieter than a whisper, yet it echoed like a gunshot in the stillness of the hallway. “The Hanahaki of Betrayal.”

The figure carrying the jar didn’t stop. They continued, walking down the stairs. A path cleared in front of them, students tripping over their feet to get out of the figure’s path.

“And Prince Ali had contracted the Hanahaki of Friendship disease. He was coughing up snapdragons and he gave them to me. It was so sweet.” Lila bragged, pulling a preserved snapdragon out of her bag. “I promised him that I would always keep it on me to remain his friendship.”

“That is amazing, Lila!” Alya sighed, hands clasped in front of her and eyes dreamy. “I wish that would happen with me. Won’t that be amazing, Rose?”

Rose was looking at the staircase, eyes wide with horror. She clutched Juleka’s hand with all of her strength. She lifted an arm and pointed, stuttering out two words. “Lo-look. Ma-marinette.”

Scoffing, all of the classmates turned in the direction that Rose was pointing, prepared to destroy any attempts at pity that Marinette was trying to evoke. 

One by one, as they realized what Marinette was carrying, they all froze, eyes open in shock. Tongues suddenly were weighed with lead and unable to move. The only movement that they had was their head moving to follow Marinette who glided past them.

An ugly snarl was on Lila’s face, furious that Marinette had stolen what she perceived as her rightful attention. Lightning fast, she darted into the path that had been cleared for Marinette and grabbed the fabric covering the jar. She leaned in and hissed, “I’m the queen of this class and school. Give up!” She stepped back and ripped the fabric off of the jar, fully expecting an empty jar.

Marinette stumbled back as Lila got in her face, tightening her grip on her jar of flowers. Suddenly, the feeling beneath her fingertips changed from soft fabric to cold glass. She looked down, and gasped in horror. Her shattered heart was on display to everyone in the building. She snatched the fabric back from Lila’s limp hand, covered up her jar of flowers, and fled out the door, tears snaking down her cheeks.

Marinette fled down the street, dodging around other passersby and dashing tears away from her cheeks. As she turned onto the street where she lived, she started coughing. A full Red Dahlia forced its way up her throat and into her hand, red spotting the stem.

Marinette clutched the dahlia in her hand and ran up to her room, collapsing on her bed in sobs. She curled up in a ball, the blood spotted dahlia held close to her chest and tears staining a track down her cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope that it was worth the time
> 
> As always, if I screwed up with tag/spelling/format, feel free to tell me.
> 
> The flower meanings are embedded in the fic. I pulled the information off of 2 sites: [source 1](https://gardenerdy.com/list-of-flower-names-meanings-of-flowers) and [source 2](https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/flowers/flowers.html)
> 
> Don't complain about Hanahaki disease being different. As I couldn't find any real-life cases of someone coughing up flowers as a result of romantic woes, it is fictional. Thus I'm able and willing to change it to whatever I want it to be.
> 
> I might continue this, depends on the muse.
> 
> Happy news, I finally got around to making a [Tumblr](https://nyx3927.tumblr.com), so I'll probably start posting ideas on there. IDK, I'll use it for something.


End file.
